Currently Playing: Athlete - Best Not To Think About It.
There are things I want to say so much, but I end up not saying that much at all.
And there are many things I wish I didn’t say, but they end up spilling out all over here for the world to see.
“…there is a pane of glass between me and them, and they can see me, but they cannot touch me.”
—————
Back in my first year and second years, some
of us got together to have small discussions once in awhile about the
things we felt were important to talk about so that we maintained a
strong connection with the world around us, and our place in it. The
afflictions of the Ummah took central stage in those discussions, but
that’s another story for another day. We once had the honour of having
an esteemed scholar in our presence. We asked him many things, one of
which was regarding the problems he faced that led to him to step down
from his office. He subtly sidestepped the question, but I can still
remember him pausing a little, considering how to reply, sighing
quietly before slowly saying:
“There are only two people who really know what is in my heart. Myself, and my wife.”
I think most of us in the group that day,
especially the girls, forgot our question entirely after hearing that
line. I don’t think it’d be an exaggeration to say that it had the same
effect as Tom Cruise’s “I miss my wife” in Jerry Maguire, except it was even better because those lines weren’t written for him to say.
Forget tales of star-crossed lovers, give me a
marriage that still retains its initial affection from the get-go and
you’ll have a fairytale story that will have me hooked. And therein
lies the tragedy really - the fact that today it is a
fairytale, a work of fiction. There’s no sanctity found in marriage any
more, because people don’t want love with responsibility. I get tired
of all the jokes out there likening marriage to a deal of a lifetime’s
misery. Sure it’s only a joke, har-har, but the fact of the matter is,
less and less people are getting married today because they’re more
attracted to the idea of being together but not being legally tied down.
(Please, no remarks on my own phobic fears.
That’s a completely different thing altogether. For one thing, I would
never go for premarital cohabitation. Disgusting.)
Sometimes I feel like I’m living in the wrong
era and time. The very idea of unadulterated, pure, old-fashioned love
is a concept fast going, going, gone. Take Freddy Eynsford-Hill’s
character from My Fair Lady. That he could be so taken with Eliza to
the point of being completely happy just walking on the street ‘where
she lives’ would, where once it was sweet, earn him today the label of
being foolish or obsessed.
Today, if it isn’t crude, cynical or conditional, it’s unrealistic.
We’re all so afraid of vulnerability.
“…Well baby, you’re already in that cage. You built it yourself. And it’s
not bounded in the west by Tulip, Texas, or in the east by Somali-land.
It’s wherever you go. Because no matter where you run, you just end up
running into yourself.”
- Paul Varjak, Breakfast at Tiffany’s
So much for sentimental is stupid. What’s come over me?
—————
You know, I think I know what I need right now. A ride. Not on a Harley, but on a Vespa. The latest GTS 250
model looks perfect for a spin. Now I just need the idyllic town to
picture, like the one by the sea depicted in Kiki’s Delivery Service,
and I’m gone.
Enough said here.
